TCA: Heigl, Heigl, Heigl! The refrain sung to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’s’ Shonda Rhimes
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Katherine Heigl, are your ears burning?
ABC’s show runner panel today featured some of the most prominent producers in television: Marc Cherry of ‘Desperate Housewives’; Silvio Horta of ‘Ugly Betty’; Greg Berlanti of ‘Eli Stone,’ ‘Brothers & Sisters’ and ‘Dirty Sexy Money’; Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse of ‘Lost’; and Shonda Rhimes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Private Practice.’
The idea, which has worked out well for ABC in the past, is to let TV critics spend some time with big-time producers to talk about shows and the TV industry in general.
This year, not so much. Because this year there is THE KATHERINE HEIGL CONTROVERSY THAT WILL NEVER DIE, and the press hadn’t been able to get its hands on Rhimes until today.
Heigl, you’ll recall, issued a statement recently saying that she withdrew herself from Emmy contention because she was not given adequate material this season. That was followed by rumors that Rhimes is going to kill off her character to get back at Heigl, who won an Emmy last year for the role.
The press tour session started with a question for Lindelof and Cuse about the castaways leaving the ‘Lost’ island permanently. And then it was off to the Heigl races!
Q: Shonda, Steve McPherson told us yesterday that you have a great story line planned for Katherine Heigl. What do you want to tell us about the situation, what’s going on, how are things going?
Rhimes: That’s such an open-ended question.
Lindelof: I didn’t see this one coming.
Rhimes: It’s a really great story we’ve worked out that we’re all excited about, and things are going fine.
Q: You really like to give it up, don’t you?
Horta: I would put her in a coma, big-time. (He was laughing. A little too much.)
A few questions followed about ‘Desperate Housewives’ fast-forwarding a la ‘Lost,’ the strike, the lie that the ‘Lost’ castaways come up with when they leave the island, and the challenges of blending comedy and drama in one series.
Then: It’s HEIGL TIME again!
Q: When you first go online and see what Katherine Heigl has said, what is your first reaction? Do you go into damage-control mode?
Rhimes: I didn’t log on to a website. I didn’t see it that way. But when I was told about it, I have to say that my reaction was that I thought it was surprising. I have a really wonderful working relationship with Katherine. And I love and respect her as an actress. And everyone knows that Izzie is one of my favorite characters. So, for me, it was surprising, but Katie is an outspoken person and I think we all know that already.
An unrelated ‘Grey’s’ question followed.
Then ... Katherine and the ghosts of Wisteria Lane past:
Q: All of you are show runners dealing with lots of people and lots of egos, and you have the press watching you. When something happens that you don’t have control over, how do you deal with that? What’s your management style?
Cherry: I completely hide. I go, oh, for God’s sake, don’t let any of the press talk to me, because I don’t even know how I feel about this yet. And usually, the best way to deal with actors is to pretend that they’re real people and you talk to them.
And, for me, when we had that disastrous Vanity Fair photo shoot thing [involving an alleged dust-up between Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross], the thing that was just so sad was that a writer, one of you guys, saw it from one perspective and it was so much more complicated and so real and understandable. So I ultimately solved it by hugging a sobbing actress in her trailer for 30 minutes and telling her, “This too shall pass.” So that’s kind of what I do is try to figure out what happened myself and go down and give the best advice. Because it’s not real life. It’s showbiz. You try to always explain to them, that, yeah, it’s controversial now and people hate you or do whatever, but pretty soon they’re going to forget you and really attack ‘Lost.’
Rhimes: Marc is right. In a lot of instances, the story that’s out in the press is only one side of the story. A reporter sees it from their perspective and they report what they see. And sometimes that’s not everything that’s going on and that’s not everything that’s underneath something. For me, it’s about these people are my family. I literally work with them sometimes six days a week, 16 hours a day. I know them in a way that a lot of people can’t possibly. And I’ve watched all of them from being lovely young actors to incredibly famous people, and they’re dealing with things that a lot of people can’t imagine. So, for me, it’s about seeing them as people.
Q: You said there’s one side of the story. What don’t we know about the Heigl thing?
Cherry: She was drunk.
The conversation changes for a few minutes and then, HEIGL IS BAAAACK!
Q: Shonda, with her statement, Heigl insulted the writers, essentially? How did that make you feel?
A: She insulted the writers? Did she?
Q: Yes.
A: I don’t think that’s insulting the writers per se. There’s two things: The first half of season she had a very strong story line with George that played out more comedically. The second half, Katherine asked me to write her light so that she could work on her movie.
Q: But what was your reaction?
A: I didn’t feel insulted.
--Maria Elena Fernandez